Cruz: ‘Sad’ US Will Have Embassy in Havana Before Having an Embassy In Jerursalem

Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz denounced the US opening an embassy in Cuba wondering “How sad is it that under the Obama administration the United States is going to have an embassy in Havana before we have an embassy in Jerusalem?” on Wednesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”

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Cruz said, “I think this is a serious mistake. It’s a manifestation of the pattern of weakness and appeasement towards our enemies that has characterized the Obama-Clinton foreign policy. It’s the same pattern that occurred — that is occurring with regard to Russia, with regard to Iran, and it’s a very dangerous pattern. How sad is it that under the Obama administration the United States is going to have an embassy in Havana before we have an embassy in Jerusalem, that this administration will be friendlier to a Communist dictator who hates America and seeks to undermine our nation, than it is willing to stand with our close friend and ally, the nation of Israel? I think it’s wrong.”

Cruz continued, “The very first truth-teller featured in the book is a gentleman named Guillermo Farinas. He was a Cuban dissident. He used to be a member of Castro’s army. He was a Communist. In fact, his nickname was El Coco. And he describes how he went to the Soviet Union and somehow got his hand on a copy of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm.’ And it touched him powerfully, and he became a dissident, and he became a critic. He’s been imprisoned, he’s had hunger strikes. And Guillermo, and also another Cuban dissident named Elizardo Sanchez, both came to the United States about a year ago. I interviewed both of them for about a half hour in Spanish. We put out the video interview, but it was interesting, both of them predicted what the Obama administration has done. And both of them said that the Castros are following Putinissimo is what they called it, basically the philosophy of Putin, of appearing to liberalize, while in fact strengthening the repression. What Obama’s doing is sending billions of dollars that will only make the Castros stronger, oppressing, torturing, murdering their people, and also spreading terrorism throughout Latin America.”

He concluded, “I’ll tell you, Guillermo Farinas was back in the United States recently accepting an award for his principled stand against Communism, it was after the Obama administration had announced their rapprochement. And he said that the opposition movement in Cuba is heartbroken, they are abandoned, they are crushed. You know, the administration is not insisting on any role for dissidents. The Castros are continuing to imprison and torture people. They have no political rights. And all of the money going there is just propping up a cruel dictatorship that hates America, and that is 90 miles away from America. And it’s an example — consistently under the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, we have abandoned our friends and allies, whether it is the UK, whether it’s Canada, whether it’s Israel, and we have shown weakness and appeasement to our enemies.”